


The Back Hand of God

by calenhads



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: Gen, Other, deputy's offspring as the judge????, jacob and joseph both live and ended up in the bunker WHAT OF IT, jacob is kinda ooc bc GROWTH!, kinda brainwashing...kinda not, my dep is too defiant and stubborn to fulfill joe's word just jot that down, not canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 18:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17534213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenhads/pseuds/calenhads
Summary: “Did we do enough?” Evelyn seemed to be asking no one in particular, but she could feel Jacob behind her. His presence after all these years still impossibly large and intimidating to most. He didn’t answer, but she could feel his footsteps growing closer, the wood floorboards creaking under his weight. “Did we try hard enough?”





	The Back Hand of God

**Author's Note:**

> Oh jeez.  
> I haven't written anything in an incredibly long time, but, with the New Dawn trailer dropping and us possibly getting some insight on our beloved Deputy, I decided I'd bite the bullet and write about an incredibly dumb idea for my (ridiculous!) canon that I have planned regarding that timeline.

“Did we do enough?” Evelyn seemed to be asking no one in particular, but she could feel Jacob behind her. His presence after all these years still impossibly large and intimidating to most. He didn’t answer, but she could feel his footsteps growing closer, the wood floorboards creaking under his weight. 

“Did we try hard enough?” Evelyn knew his eyes, much like her own, were trained on the masked figure moving amongst the green grass, dirt roads and the bustling inhabitants of New Eden. Most moved out that figure’s way, offering them a bow of their heads in a silent greeting before moving on, and to them that’s all the masked figure was; a figure. Someone who protected New Eden and those that lived there in Joseph’s stead. 

_His chosen. His right hand._

Evelyn’s gut twisted, stomach flipping as she watched them stalk towards the gate. The people of New Eden didn’t know their protector, the forgiver and cleanser of sins wasn’t just a figure at all, but a boy of only fifteen. A child doing the will of an aging “prophet.” 

It was normal for her to do this, to watch him- her son- take up his position at the front of their new home. Putting himself between his people and those that might want to harm or take their way of life away from them. 

“We did all we could, Ev.” Jacob sounded tired, exasperated almost. She knows they speak of this often, of their son or lack of one. “We gave him the skills he needed. His path is his own to forge.” 

An irritated scoff escaped Evelyn’s lips as she felt Jacob’s hand on her shoulder, large and calloused, gripping ever so slightly. She loved Jacob with every ounce of her soul she had left, but his devotion to his brother and his cause -new and old- was something she would never understand. 

“No,” her voice was clipped, dripping with loathing. “He’s on the path your _brother_ forged for him.”

She didn’t need to turn to know that Jacob was giving her a knowing look, tired eyes drilling into the back of her skull; _you know that’s not true._

Evelyn shook her head gently, either she could hear what Jacob was thinking or she, like so many times before, refused to acknowledge the lack of truth in her convictions. She had always been selfish, prideful, never the understanding sort and for years now the pit of stomach had churned, and the truth had gnawed away at her. A truth that they all knew, but none would ever speak. 

She had put Aaron on this path. Her own son. With her unwillingness to hear Joseph’s words, to accept his forgiveness and take up her mantle, her duty, of cleansing this world of more sin and more corruption. 

“Ev, -“ Jacob’s voice was soft, angelic almost. She didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to look at him. 

She reached for the hand resting on her shoulder anyway, her own rough and world worn fingers clutching his, squeezing. She took only one more long, hard look at Aaron, the spiked baseball bat he had so aptly named “wrath” sat upon his back, the blood of sinners and the saved caked on the barrel, before turning to finally meet Jacob’s face. 

All around her were sounds of the children and parents of New Eden laughing and carrying on behind her and she became riddled with guilt, overcome with shame. Jacob’s calloused hand gently gripping her chin and coaxing her eyes to level with his, brought her out of her thoughts for a moment. 

Her husband wasn't known to be the tender sort, he had even told her as much himself, especially not in his youth. But looking into his eyes now, those dull blue hues smiling even when he couldn’t, she could see it. There was an incredible sadness there, she knew and something akin to disappointment. 

She hadn’t meant to let a tear slip and didn’t notice she had been silently crying until she felt the rough pad of Jacob’s thumb brush against her cheek. Evelyn had to stop herself from laughing at the irony of it all; _only the weak weep_. That’s what he had said to her a lifetime ago. 

Evelyn had always thought herself strong. Strong enough to withstand his control, strong enough to withstand Eden’s Gate when they took her home, strong enough to withstand years in a bunker with the man that had stolen her family and life from her. And here she stood despite it all; still sound in mind but broken in spirit. Weeping for the loss of a life that wasn’t even her own. 

She felt the lump in her throat grow against her will, flashes of a life long and sometimes better forgotten raced through her mind. Aaron’s smile, his contagious laughter, his curiosity and knack for getting into trouble in that basement they had called their home. Before she knew it, her voice was wavering, cracking ever so slowly. 

“I did this.” _Confess and you’ll be born anew._

“I did this to our son. Our boy.” A hand came to rest over her heart as she looked away from Jacob, glancing into the home they had built with one another; it was beating wildly, the thumping ringing in her ears. 

“This is all my fault-“ Before she could finish she felt herself being pulled into Jacob’s chest, his arms wrapping around her like they had done so many times before. Only the weak weep. It had been a long time since she’d cried like this, heaving, nails digging into the fabric of Jacob’s shirt as she sagged against him. 

“These aren’t his crosses to carry.” She heaved, talking to Jacob but at the same time, talking to no one at all. “He shouldn’t have to repent for _my_ sins. For my transgressions. For what I was made to do.” 

She tried to keep herself steady, to focus on the hand soothing her hair, the lips of the man she had learned to love peeling off the side of her face, calming her slightly, but not enough. For years she had harbored hatred for Joseph, not only for what came before, but for what was happening now. 

She had blamed him for twisting her innocent child into a weapon, a pawn for him to use in this new world of his. But It was becoming clearer every day, Joseph had nothing to do with it. It was her. It was always her. With her constant nagging and sheltering, the pulling and shielding. 

She thought she was protecting him. 

Everything was always her fault. It was her who had brought fire and ruin to the world. It was her who had doomed her family her friends, her own mother even said as much. In protecting him, she had doomed him, her only son, to a life of servitude and hollow victory’s. 

When Jacob pulled away he wretched her from her thoughts once again, his hands coming to rest on either sides of her face, keeping her steady. She knew he hated self pity, weakness. Old habits die hard and she half expected to look into the eyes of a man she once defied but feared. 

But, when she looked into those blue hues she saw a flicker of something she hadn’t seen in years, a fire she thought long extinguished. 

“I know.” His voice was stern, unwavering, but not condemning. “He knows.” _My son knows I doomed him to a life like this._ “and Joseph knows.” 

He shook her gently, and for a moment Evelyn stilled, hands gripping his wrists. 

“But, that’s who he is. A savior, because that’s how _we_ raised him.” 

We. She and Jacob. Once enemies using each other to gain an upper hand, and now parents to a son they were so desperate to see not only survive, but to live. Evelyn had always been afraid she loved Aaron too much while Jacob not enough, both finding it hard to gain their footing in a role such as important as a parent. 

"We raised him to have a kind heart and a heavy hand in a world that wasn’t going to offer forgiveness.” 

When she caught a look at Jacob’s eyes again, she forgot how to breathe. For all the fire that was burning in them there was also pain. They weren’t unlike hers, she could see that now; tired and worried and sad. He was in just as much pain as she was. 

Every time Aaron walked out of that gate they knew he was coming back a little less himself. A little more hollow, a little more broken. 

"He’s doing this for you. For _us._ ” Evelyn’s heart broke as she heard Jacob’s voice slip, his own eyes misting ever so slightly. 

“We can’t change what he’s becoming, Ev.” 

What he’s becoming. Who he’s becoming. What he would become; she had learned that with Joseph’s influence anything was possible. He could make him into a god, a tyrant, a puppet only sent out to do his bidding. None if it was the life she had pictured for her son. 

“But, we can help him. We can _do_ better. We can be better.” 

Neither of them moved for a moment or two, the corner of Jacob’s lips twitching with the ghost of a reassuring smile. Better. They could do better. They two of them had come far, no doubt. They had seen and endured things some only encounter in nightmares. And in this new world, they had grown slack, not lazy, but cautious when they needn’t be. Weak is a word Jacob would have used before. They had grown weak. 

Evelyn knew she wasn’t weak, couldn’t become weak, not when her son needed her. Needed them. 

It wasn’t until the sound of footfalls on grass and rock did they separate slowly, Jacob giving one last reassuring stroke of his thumb against her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the gesture, knowing it wasn’t one he publicly displayed often. 

When she opened her eyes he was gone, old bones carrying him down the two small steps of their porch carefully. Evelyn watched and felt her heart leap when he clapped a hand on Aaron’s shoulder as he passed him, her son’s almost childish gait coming to a momentary halt. 

She wished she could see his face; what expression was beneath that mask. She hoped he was smiling, hoped he was happy or at least had some semblance of it. At the very thought, a smile graced her own lips and she pushed a wisp of graying hair behind her ear, watching as Aaron picked up the pace, coming closer. 

They would be better. She would be better. She would _save_ their son, if she could.  



End file.
